Topdressing Research

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31329, 28 March 1967, Page 19

Topdressing Research

Under the auspices of the agricultural aviation advisory committee of the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council a co-ordinated programme is being undertaken to improve the efficiency of aerial topdressing.

The New Zealand Agricultural Engineering Institute reports that partners in this programme are Mr R. Scott, of the Department of Agriculture at Invermay, near Dunedin, who has already made extensive studies of fertiliser distribution from the air; Mr J. Stephenson of the Engineering School at the University of Auckland, who has developed a new concept in aerodynamic spreading devices; and the staff of the institute, who have recently

been making time-and-motion studies of typical topdressing operations. The institute’s studies have so far been conducted in Canterbury and Otago and will eventually be extended to the North Island. They involve careful timing of each phase of the topdressing operation—loading time, flying and manoeuvring time, dropping time and so on—in order to provide basic information about the sequence of operations and thus indicate those aspects of the spreading cycle in which further research may be useful. First Series

A project report giving details of the first series of timing runs is now being prepared for publication. The new phase of the institute’s part in the over-all programme will be to provide testing facilities for measuring the efficiency of spread from aircraft and, in particu-

lar, to make an independent evaluation of the performance of the University of Auckland’s spreader. A landing strip and spreading zone for this purpose will be built at Lincoln College this year. Staff engaged on this project have more than a passing interest in aviation.

Mr A. Greet, the principal stop-watch operator, who has been seconded from the agricultural engineering department at Lincoln College, holds a pilot’s licence; Mr M. Watson, another member of the team, was formerly employed by Rolls Royce on jet development.